A medium-pace bowler, though Chatfield played 43 Tests and 114 One Day Internationals for his country, he is also remembered for having been hit in the head by a ball while batting, causing him to collapse and need resuscitation.

With the ball, his chief weapon was his accuracy, giving him economic bowling figures, although he occasionally would come in for punishment in the late stages of limited overs matches due to a lack of variation in his line and length.

[citation needed] In a three-day match for Wellington in February 1980, Chatfield played a key role in defeating the West Indies, who were at the time the best cricket team in the world, taking six wickets in the first innings and seven in the second.

With the ball, Chatfield distinguished himself with efforts against the West Indies, the leading cricketing side of the day, on tour in 1984/85 and in the home series which New Zealand drew in 1986/87.

England was at the end of a long and difficult tour in which they had been defeated in the Ashes by Australia, chiefly by the Australian fast bowler's Jeff Thomson and Dennis Lillee.

He coached the Hutt Valley association until they merged with Wellington, worked in a chip shop, was a courier and drove a van for a dairy.